Back in the late 70's to early 80's we would get WTBS(Day) and HBO at night by using either a small parabolic dish or a long kinda yagi like antenna to receive these services off of South Mountain. Later ASPN was transmitted this way as well. I heard that off to the North on one of the mountains was possibly Showtime or another service as well. This not to be confused with ONTV that was on Ch 15 at night in the early 80's. I could also pick up ITFs channels that years later has ASU education channels. For the Superbowl at Sun Devil Stadium I was able to pick up the blimp downlink. I know years later a wireless cable service called Peoples Choice used the frequencies before Sprint Broad Band took over the frequencies for internet service which didn't last long. So My question after all that is does anyone know who started the original service ?
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Old MDS/MMDS Service.
- Thread starter 202 East
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I believe this was started by the predecessor of Dimension (now Cox) cable, American Cable, in the late '70s to deliver HBO to areas without cable.
SuperChannel I and II (the division was known as American Superchannel). They even operated similar HBO services in Tucson, Kingman, Lake Havasu City and Needles, California which were all shuttered in 1984. The first reference in Phoenix is from January 1979, when they called themselves "SuperChannel 4" (and "SuperChannel 5" in Tucson). My hunch is the microwave system here did similarly not long after.
I lived in Tempe in the early 80s as an ASU student and worked in the cable industry. Had a south-facing apartment on University and picked up HBO on one channel and Movie Channel on the other with opposite polarization from South Mountain. This was as previously mentioned a service of American Cable to pre-sell services in areas not yet wired for cable. HBO was only on evenings then, so they probably tried to split the service with NBA games. Also received ASU ITFS channels which used adjacent frequencies and there may have been other services such as Showtime transmitted from Shaw Butte.
Those same frequencies are used today to provide wireless internet services.
Those same frequencies are used today to provide wireless internet services.
My parents had the SuperChannel service. I remember it as being an RF switcher (like the ones that were used for Atari video game systems) connected to the terminals of the TV. If you switched it over, Channel 4 would be HBO, and I think I remember them having Dimension's (Times-Mirror) short-lived "Spotlight" pay-TV network too.
Houston had such a service in the mid to late 1980s, but it apparently broadcast porn (Marilyn Chambers TV.) I recall seeing a house every day on my commute that had the dish on a pole above the roof, aimed at the downtown transmitter. Always found it amusing that the existence of that antenna revealed to that whole neighborhood what the homeowner's, uh, TV preferences were.
I think a second channel was later added that featured old movies. Don't recall the name. Both services had small ads in the newspapers.
Houston also had People's Choice TV back in the 90s. Operated in the 2.5 GHz range. Subscribers got a rooftop combo antenna that picked up the microwave signals, as well as standard OTA television (these ran afoul of some HOAs.) I seem to recall there were around 20 channels offered, not including the locals.
People's Choice TV was never heavily marketed. Only places I ever got to see it was at some businesses that had it on TVs in a waiting area, and I only saw the antennas on a few homes. I recall it was briefly rebranded to Sprint before being shut down in order for the spectrum to be switched over to mobile phone use.
People's Choice started to focus on pre-WiFi, pre fast cell network wireless internet. It was heavily advertised in the Phoenix area and called themselves "SpeedChoice." I saw a few of their antennas before cable internet started to take off, between 1999-2001. Sprint bought them out and it was an afterthought to them. They shut down about 2002 or 2003.
There were other MDS services that shared much more in ownership with the STV operations of the day. Some existed in markets without a broadcast STV station. Many eventually rebroadcast programs from ON TV (between 1983 and 1985 when it was available from the bird) or SelecTV if they lasted.
STAR (Satellite Television and Associated Resources) owned a number. Golden West Broadcasters had VEU systems in four markets before selling them fairly quickly to a concern that itself went belly-up fast (SEC investigations and all). These existed even in markets without (and with) broadcast STV services, such as Salt Lake, New Orleans, Albuquerque...and Dallas (Showbiz), for instance.
STAR (Satellite Television and Associated Resources) owned a number. Golden West Broadcasters had VEU systems in four markets before selling them fairly quickly to a concern that itself went belly-up fast (SEC investigations and all). These existed even in markets without (and with) broadcast STV services, such as Salt Lake, New Orleans, Albuquerque...and Dallas (Showbiz), for instance.
I don't remember SuperChannel 4, but I remember Pat McMahon doing TV commercials for "SuperChannel HBO" in the years before cable.
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